Savannah, GA, September 29, 2025 – The Georgia Historical Society (GHS) is pleased to announce that Emily McClatchey has been awarded the 2025 John C. Inscoe Award for the best article published in the Georgia Historical Quarterly (GHQ) in 2024. Her article, “The House that Harry Stephens Built: How an Emancipated Family's Home was Hijacked for the Lost Cause,” was featured in GHQ Vol. 108, No. 1.
The award was presented to Emily McClatchey on Friday, September 26, 2025, at the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah.
Emily McClatchey, a Georgia native and graduate of the state’s public school system, is an independent researcher and licensed psychologist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her interest in Georgia history grew from a personal passion for exploring the stories that extend beyond familiar narratives, particularly those that have been overlooked or marginalized. In her award-winning article, she turns that focus on the history of Harry Stephens and his family, framing their experience within the broader questions of how history is remembered and whose voices are preserved.
"To join the august company of scholars who have won this award before me is one of the great honors of my life,” Emily McClatchey said. “The Georgia Historical Society’s unwavering pursuit of broad-ranging and inclusive stories of Georgia’s past, is as necessary and admirable as ever, and I am grateful to have provided one such account."
“This fascinating and well-written article explores how the United Daughters of the Confederacy dispossessed freedman Harry Stephens and his family to create Alexander H. Stephens Park, a monument to the Confederate vice president and Harry’s enslaver,” the GHS Publications Award Committee said. “McClatchey details the coercive process by which the UDC forced Harry’s family out of the house that he had built after emancipation. In addition, the UDC distorted the history of the homestead, maligned the Stephens family, and erased the history of Black autonomy that they embodied. McClatchey’s careful telling of this remarkably personal and human story, one that was not necessarily an isolated one, offers powerful lessons for present day Georgians.”
Established in 2018, the Inscoe Award honors Dr. John C. Inscoe, Albert B. Saye Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Georgia and former editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly from 1989 to 2000. The award is presented annually to the author of the best article published in the GHQ during the previous year and includes a cash prize supported by an endowment in Dr. Inscoe’s honor.
Published by the Georgia Historical Society since 1917, the Georgia Historical Quarterly is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading state historical journals, featuring scholarly articles on Georgia and American history, book reviews, edited primary sources, oral histories, and essays by and about contemporary history-makers.
For more information about the John C. Inscoe Award, or for information about how to subscribe to the Georgia Historical Quarterly, please contact Keith Strigaro, Director of Public Relations and Communications, at 912.651.2125, ext. 153, or by email at kstrigaro@georgiahistory.com.
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The Georgia Historical Society (GHS) is the premier independent statewide institution responsible for collecting, examining, and teaching Georgia and American history. GHS houses the oldest and most distinguished collection of materials related exclusively to Georgia history in the nation.
To learn more visit georgiahistory.com.